Biography of Anthony C. Fasenmyer

Anthony C. Fasenmyer, now retired, has been a constructive factor in the commercial affairs of Kansas City, Kansas, and many of the results of his thirty-one years of activity still stand and have entered permanently into the life and well being of the community.

Mr. Fasenmyer was born at Fryburg in Clarion County, Pennsylvania, January 10, 1857. He was the third of five children whose parents were Jacob and Frances (Fletcher) Fasenmyer. His grandfather Balthaser Fasenmyer lived near Strassburg in Alsace, France. He spent seven years as a soldier under the great Napoleon. From there he emigrated to America and located at Fryburg, Pennsylvania, having come from a town of a similar name in Baden, Germany. He was a farmer. Jacob Fasenmyer was for fifty years a merchant in Pennsylvania. His children attended the little red schoolhouse in the country and that was the only advantages they had outside of a good home training.

After leaving school Anthony C. Fasenmyer clerked in his father’s store and thus acquired a fundamental knowledge of merchandising. At the age of seventeen his father started him in a store in a small country town near Fryburg, and he was identified with that business until he removed to Kansas.

It was due to the persuasion of Father Kuhls, of St. Mary’s Hospital in Kansas City, Kansas, and an old friend of the Fasenmyer family, that Anthony Fasenmyer came out to the West and with his wife and one child settled at Wyandotte, now Kansas City, Kansas. His first business was handling real estate in partnership with Dan Rooney, and Dan Furiong. The firm was known as Rooney, Furlong & Fasenmyer. With the collapse of the boom in Kansas this firm was one of many that was caught in financial straits, and Mr. Fasenmyer lost practically all he had gained by his previous years of effort and the year following he spent as manager of the Kansas Catholic, a local publication, and then with money borrowed from the A. M. Northrup Banking Company he once more engaged in business for himself at 530 Minnesota Avenue. That was his business home for twenty years, and in 1911 he sold out and retired. His two brothers Frank P. and Joseph G. Fasenmyer, also conducted a clothing store in the same block and on the same side of the street. All these three brothers made comfortable fortunes as business men of the city.

Mr. Anthony Fasenmyer was one of the organizers of the Commercial Bank and of the Kansas Trust Company and Citizens Savings Bank, and was vice president and a director in each organization for fifteen years. He has acquired a large amount of real estate, and owns the two story building at the corner of Seventh and Minnesota avenues which he built and which bears his name.

On January 13, 1885, Mr. Fasenmyer married Mrs. Mary (Sterner) Groner. She was born at Fryburg, Pennsylvania. Nine children were born to them, two of whom died in infancy. Cornelius is a business man in Kansas City, Kansas, and Eugene G. is also a young business man, both the sons having risen to commendable prominence in local affairs. Louisa is the wife of Harry Mauk of Orlando, Florida, where he followed contracting, and they have two children. Christinia lives at home. Mary is a Sister of Charity at Butte, Montana. Julia and Frances are trained nurses at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Kansas City, Missouri. Anthony is a student in the electrical engineering and mechanical department of Notre Dame University, in Indiana. Collette is still at home. Mr. Fasenmyer has given his children liberal advantages in the way of education and all the comforts of a good home.

Mr. Fasenmyer has always exercised his independent judgment in politics, has stood for everything that would make a better and greater community, but has never sought any office. He and his family are active members of St. Mary’s Oatholic Church and Mrs. Fasenmyer is one of the foremost church workers and has done much to alleviate the conditions of the poor and needy in her home city.